


What You Want

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, F/M, Getting Back Together, The Homestuck Epilogues: Candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21663814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: After the Candy Epilogues, John confronts the prospect of the rest of his life. He doesn't know how to answer the big questions, but he's getting there.
Relationships: John Egbert/Roxy Lalonde
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	What You Want

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romulusgloriosus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romulusgloriosus/gifts).



> Romulus and I have talked a lot about the future of Roxygen. I think there's a lot of power in choosing your own path, even if it's not the radical one. And I think John deserves a home.

‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ Rose says. The last time you saw them, her eyes were cold fury, directing a whole lot of people using words you didn’t understand to go and do something awful but necessary. It’s weird that war hasn’t stopped your life from going on. It’s weird that you can sit in her kitchen and have a cup of tea with her three days after something like that.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asks. 

You’re thinking it’s probably been a while since you’ve talked if she’s resorting to prompting you for a response, but that’s not what she means. You hadn’t wanted the conversation to go this way. That’s probably on you for thinking a conversation with Rose would make you feel more at peace.

‘Um,’ you say. ‘You’re always right, aren’t you?’

‘That’s what I tell my wife,’ she says.

‘But you are.’

She sighs and tucks her hair behind her ears. It’s almost reassuring that she still does that. You remember meeting her for the first time and thinking how _Rose_ that gesture was. You wonder if that was your doing too.

‘I have an innate tendency to know things, even when I’m not actively using my powers. When I am using them, I’m always right, yes.’

Yeah. You thought that was the case. 

You thought you and Roxy covered this. That you were overblowing your influence. That things aren’t that simple or you’re reading too deep, definitely one of those things. That you were just going to try your best to be a human with years ahead of him. You just wanted to confirm that. But _Rose_ is saying you were actually right, or close enough.

‘What do I _do?’_ you ask.

‘You try not to obsess about your ludicrous power over everything that was, is, or will be. And you think about what is truly important to you. To _you,_ John. So much of this,’ she makes a small gesture, eyes to the heavens, and you’re pretty sure “this” means “everything”, ‘isn’t what you want.’

You laugh, brokenly. What an under statement. The only thing you’ve ever _really_ wanted, in your whole life it feels like, was to see your dad again. Some omno … Shit, you can’t remember the word. Some _all powered_ god you are. 

‘But it is what you expect from an adventure, on some level. You like video games. You watched movies where meteors destroyed the planet. You believed in a simple and utterly evil villain, and that good would always conquer. And when the hero wins, in your mind, he always gets the girl.’

‘I don’t want it to be my _fault,’_ you whisper.

Rose puts her hand on yours immediately. When she doesn’t _think_ about comforting someone, she’s not as terrible at it as she is otherwise. 

‘It’s _not,’_ she says, her voice low but fierce. ‘This is _not_ your fault. You didn’t _ask_ for this. It’s so large a burden, John, and it’s not fucking fair. But it’s not your _fault.’_

You’re crying, even though you’re trying to stop doing that quite so much. You just … you really needed to hear that. Rose doesn’t mind though, she’s not as tired of it as Roxy, as Harry Anderson. 

‘I’m so messed up,’ you sob. 

‘Hug?’ Rose asks.

You nod, wiping your nose with your sleeve. Ugh, so gross. And your face is still so wet. She moves into your arms without caring, though. Maybe it’s a mom thing. Maybe it’s a war leader thing. Either way, you don’t seem to be registering on the “gross” scale. 

Rose has never really mastered the art of hugging. She’s tall and bony and she holds her arms wrong somehow, like she’s C-3PO. But she’s your friend and she cares about you and you don’t have to look at her face and she’s warm and real. It makes you feel a thousand times better and a million times worse. You ache so much in your chest, but you can lean on her. You don’t have the creativity to be responsible for someone like Rose. Or Dave, or Jade, or any of the rest of them. It _can’t_ all be you.

‘Why do you think you’re messed up?’ Rose asks quietly.

‘Because,’ you mumble into her shoulder. ‘We’re at war and the world ended and I still regret all the shit I put Roxy and Harry Anderson through most.’

She pats you on the back. It’s oddly timed, somehow. You wouldn’t trade her shitty hugs for the world. Or even for one of Dave’s hugs, which are basically top tier. 

‘Things are better now, aren’t they?’ she asks.

You laugh wetly. You still can’t stop the tears from coming out, no matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut. 

‘Yeah. Roxy and I get along a lot better when we’re divorced, it turns out.’

‘You don’t have to get the girl. You never did. You don’t have to get anyone, if that’s not what you want. Just think about it, okay? Not about what you think society expects from you or about what happens in the movies, just about what you want.’

You pull back from her and squint as well as you can. You think you’re recovering. Enough to be suspicious of something like that.

‘Rose, do you think I’m gay?’

She smiles. 

‘The secret to always being right, is never saying anything you’re unsure about.’

*

You don’t want to think about it. You’ve never wanted to think about anything less. You wish Rose could just tell you the answers, but you know that’s not really how this goes. What _do_ you want? 

You try to imagine the last time you were happy. You don’t know when it was. Probably with Roxy, but apparently you can’t think of anything. You can’t seem to be bothered to remember specifics of your wedding day. It sure happened. Lots of stuff has happened. But how can you tell what you “want” if you’re not sure you’ve ever wanted anything. When you’re not sure if you’ve ever cared about anything.

Whatever Rose was implying, you’re pretty sure you’re not gay. Apparently you don’t know yourself that well, but you’re solid there. You kinda thought about it, what with Dave lecturing you about it all the goddamn time. Even if you acknowledge that your younger self had even less ability to self-reflect than you do now, you know what attraction feels like. What love feels like.

You can’t stop thinking about her. It’s been _good,_ these last few weeks. Not in a you-want-to-remarry-her kind of way. Not even in a you-want-to-date-her kind of way. You’ve just missed having your best friend, and she was that once. It wasn’t all bad.

Did you make her wife-shaped? Did you just need a wife at the end of the game and all the other options were too lesbian or too related to you? You remember feeling like it was going too fast, but it would have happened earlier in the movies. In the movies, you would have killed a boss together and then kissed her right there and then. 

She’d resent all of that, of course. She’s still her own person, you’re getting that now. And Rose said that too, it’s not like you’ve ever watched a movie about a girl finding a space alien and getting married and adopting a clone of a girl the hero used to date. Some of it is other people, some of it is just life, it’s not all your subconscious.

Why is your life so fucking weird.

What ever, that’s not the point. The point is, you need to actually want something. And it doesn’t have to be what was chosen for you.

It makes you think about Jane, weirdly. You used to talk, and she told you all about her childhood. She not only wanted the position she was set to inherit, she was pretty confident she’d be better at it than the people holding her spot for her. People, and the evil fish alien she didn’t believe existed. And then she comes here, and she’s kind of taken over the world. She outdid the evil fish alien of her time, even if not of Roxy’s. Yet. It’d almost be inspiring if it wasn’t horrific.

But you never knew what you wanted to be when you grew up. When your school talked about how you’d eventually choose subjects based on what you wanted to do in college, you tuned the fuck out. When Dave talked about how he was gonna take the world by storm the second he was old enough to take the training wheels of his (dubious) genius, you couldn’t imagine him as an adult anymore than you could imagine yourself as one. 

Your alternate universe self was a comedian but you’re not that funny and you don’t like the celebrity you already have. You don’t even have a high school diploma, are you seriously only thinking about this now?

You were really dumb to just retire at 16, as if you didn’t have to fill your time with something. You didn’t even pick up a hobby.

You’re trying to help now. You can think of a lot of way your windy powers could help, but you’re not really comfortable killing an army made up of people who can’t possibly compete with your literal godhood. And even if you breezed into Jane’s quarters, it’s not as if you could just say the right combination of words and completely change her political ideals. Not even Rose could do that. 

Really, the most help you’re able to offer is through showing your face associated with Rose and Karkat’s team. That and trying to provide Jake and Tavros with some kind of normal family environment. 

In the end, due to absolute desperation, you do as Rose suggested and just write your story down so you can look at it instead of trying to hold it all in your own head. You just do dot points, not wanting to spend forever on it.

When you look at it like this, you can see how the story is supposed to go. You redeem yourself from your apathy by acting the hero again. When you do, Roxy will remember how you used to be, before you were a dumb sadsack, and fall back in love with you. And Jane will either melt like a wicked witch, or she’ll realise how wrong she’s been and open a bakery or some shit.

So if that’s how you think it’s supposed to go, then you should resist it, right? You don’t have to be a slave to how you think stories work.

But if you do that just because Rose told you to, aren’t you just a different slave? Fuck it, you just want a day of not thinking about all this _bullshit._

*

You call Roxy and take her to an old school arcade. Your dad took you to one that he went to as a kid sometimes, and you always liked the retro games. You’re not entirely sure why you’ve never taken Roxy to one before, except that you hated being recognised. You just look like normal adults now though, so nobody bothers you.

‘You do _not_ know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Egbert,’ she says as you walk through the door. 

‘I think I can take you, Egbert,’ you reply.

She rolls her eyes, fighting back a smile. She was surprised to get your call, but pleased. You’ve been putting effort in and she’s been giving you a lot of credit for that. Harry Anderson is taking a lot more work, but he’s at school now so you don’t have to stress about that. 

There’s a lot of two-player games, and Roxy kicks your butt at every single one of them. Even when you cheat a little at Dance Dance Revolution, you can’t beat her. She’s simply the best gamer girl there is.

Apart from insulting each other, you don’t talk about anything of substance for almost four hours. When she tells you to buy her a nasty hot dog, you’re relieved to get the chance to sit down. You’re not entirely sure when you got a time limit on standing up, but you’ve very much crossed that threshold, especially with your height making hunching over the games necessary. 

The chairs are plastic and shitty, but they’re chairs. The hot dogs are similarly plastic and shitty, but they give you a weird kind of nostalgia. You’d probably hate a hot dog that tasted like real meat.

‘What brought this on?’ Roxy asks. 

You shrug, stealing one of her chips. She tries to slap your hand, but you’re too quick, a real pro chip stealer. 

‘I dunno. I didn’t want to just stare at the ceiling thinking about thinking.’

She looks at you with surprise and then smiles.

‘That’s awesome, John. That’s just, so awesome.’

‘Kinda feels like bare minimum,’ you say, the laugh behind your voice not really making the statement sound any less sad.

‘Getting up is so fucking hard, my dude,’ she says. ‘No, you’re not allowed to dismiss this accomplishment, it’s huge. I’m supes proud of you.’

You want so badly to lighten the mood, to speculate on how Pacman and Ms Pacman get it on or something, but you think you probably should be able to get somewhat real without immediately changing the subject.

‘Rose thinks I should think about what I want, but it’s hard,’ you say. 

‘Gaaawd,’ Roxy groans, dragging the word out and slumping in her chair. ‘That girl needs to chill it with the big questions. You know last time we had dinner she asked me whether I thought speculative fiction could ever truly comment on a mundane society? As if we don’t have fuckin’ superheroes for friends? I was like, Rosie, don’t you dare take the fun out of wizards on me. It’s okay to just have some choice old dudes with beards and zappy magic, you get me?’

You laugh and Roxy’s mild frown transforms into delight immediately. God, when was the last time you laughed without kind of sounding like you might cry?

‘Okay hot stuff,’ she says, taking your surprising composure as encouragement. ‘What _do_ you want?’

‘Ugh, I don’t know,’ you say. ‘I thought I couldn’t do any harm just by going to an arcade, right? And I didn’t want it to be in service of like, making Harry Anderson forgive me or rehabilitating the English disasters.’

‘Aw, you know how to make a girl feel special,’ Roxy teases. ‘Actually, that kinda does lahmayoh. Like I don’t cost you effort, doesn’t sound like a compliment but somehow works its way around to being one anyway. You’re a lot funner when you aren’t trying to scheme at the same time, you fuckin’ suck at that.’

You kick her shoe, smiling despite yourself. Not even that long ago, her saying something like that would just break you. You’d feel terrible about implying she isn’t your priority, and even worse that she sees even a well-earned flaw in you.

‘You know, we’ve got aaaages before that teenager of ours comes home,’ she says.

‘I can’t go another round of Dance Dance, Roxy, I’m a hundred years old.’

‘Pfft. Nah, I’ve well and truly earned bragging rights so I’m done with here if you are. I was thinkin’ somethin’ a bit more _adult.’_

Your stomach does something completely irrational and you feel your eyes get all wide. You can’t just _do_ that, can you? Is _that_ something you want? You’re having too many emotions at once to figure out a single one of them, but you’re pretty sure you’d follow Roxy anywhere.

‘Oh my god, your face!’ she says. ‘Mind out of the gutter, divorcee. C’mon, I wanna show you somewhere special.’

She takes you to a gun range. She greets the service people by name and they take you straight through to a field partitioned by concrete walls. It reminds you of the golf range Dave dragged you to, because he felt like it was something you’d be good at. You’ve never held a gun in your life and the confidence with which Roxy hefts her rifle is kind of intimidating. 

She’s a perfect shot, unsurprisingly. She probably was at 16, too. You clap encouragingly on every bullseye. She takes her eye from the scope and smiles up at you.

‘Okay, your turn, big boy.’

‘I’m making you use a hammer after this,’ you tell her.

You crouch where she was and try and mimic her position. She holds the rifle steady and corrects you with gentle hands. 

‘Okay, I know they call it pulling the trigger but we’re not insane here and we don’t do that. _Squeeze._ Helps to do it breathin’ out. And you wanna expect the kick. Don’t fight it, you’ll bruise yourself, but don’t just let the damn thing fly out of your hands neither. And never, ever point it somewhere you aren’t okay with a bullet going, okay?’

You nod, and squint into the scope. You have a feeling this would be easier if you didn’t need glasses. The image kind of looks like it’s underwater. You remember your telescope doing this too. 

You breathe in, deeply. And when you exhale, you squeeze like she told you to.

You completely miss the target, but Roxy insists not by much. She corrects your position, chest pressing into your back as she looks over your shoulder to see where you’re pointing. You want to make a joke about her being Patrick Swayze and you being Demi Moore, but you also want to take her seriously.

‘Try again, you were real close, babe.’

She leaves her hand on your back as you aim again. You think you moved your chest too much with your breathing last time. This time you imagine her hand is an anchor. You breathe … and shoot.

You still miss all of the rings, but this time you at least hit the paper. Roxy squeals and places the rifle carefully aside before she hugs you excitedly. You hug her back, closing your eyes against the reality that you have to let her go. 

‘John,’ she says, when she steps back. ‘You’re not in love with me. Don’t go convincing yourself otherwise just because Rose made you actually think for once.’

‘I’m not doing that,’ you say. ‘I just forget how much I miss you sometimes. It’s not like that, I’m not … I’m not going to put you through all that again.’

She smiles at you sadly, and you think that the moment might go on forever. But then she pushes you back down to the rifle. You don’t think she’ll hug you again, not even if you hit a bullseye, but you’re gonna try anyway. 

*

You start seeing a therapist without telling anyone. You don’t want anyone to tell you it’s good, and you definitely don’t want anyone to tell you it’s bad. It’s ridiculous, right? You’re a fully grown man and more than that, you’re a _god._ Louise can’t relate to what you’ve gone through and she certainly can’t fix you with a few words. But you’re sick of talking to yourself. And now that you’ve started feeling again, you’re having too many days where you want to scream for not knowing what your brain and body is doing. You hate that you’re apparently dumb enough that you don’t realise you’re worried until your stomach starts cramping.

Louise doesn’t try and say she understands though, and she never talks about fixing you. You barely even talk about the stuff you thought you would, like your hangups with your dad, or even your hangups with your son. Instead, she gets you to talk through your day and questions every time you say that something’s tricky for you.

You haven’t eaten breakfast in forever, you just sleep in or lie in bed until you can just combine it with lunch because you don’t want to think about what to eat. Louise points out that you have a lot of money and can just buy premade meals. She instructs you to see a doctor to get sleeping pills, because she wants to see how you feel when you’re healthy. She lets you say every self-hatey thought you’ve ever had without looking at you with pity. When you say them out loud, somehow there’s not as many as you’d thought there was. It felt like your head was full of them, all pressing at your tongue as you refuse to say them to your friends and let them see how ugly your brain is. 

She urges you to try new things instead of feeling the pressure to decide what you want from square one. She listens to you talk about quests on video games with attentive eyes despite clearly not knowing what you’re talking about at all. She doesn’t need to. One session, you just brainstorm about Harry Anderson’s birthday present for the full hour.

It’s not _perfect_ or anything, and even just the expectation of talking about your feelings exhausts you even when you don’t talk about anything important. She tells you that the fact that you sought her out is a sign that you want to be better, and that’s better than anything therapy could give you.

One day you tell her you think you want your wife back and she just smiles like she knew that all along. And then she helps you plan that, too.

*

You enlist Rose’s help. Harry Anderson leaps at the suggestion of a sleepover in a way that has all the adults involved start talking about supervision and the reality of the sleeping arrangements and the value of _waiting._ You leave Rose’s house with an even stronger impression that you have no idea how to be a dad than usual.

You pick Roxy flowers yourself, breezing all over Earth C to collect the ones you’ve researched. You don’t really care about flower language, you just want some that are bright and special and that only you could get for her. You want to show her that you’ve thought about it, and you’re thinking about her, not yourself for once.

You knock on the door that used to be yours with your heart in your throat. Nerves, definitely. But you’re getting better at not just pushing down every feeling you have so you don’t have to deal with how they complicate everything, and you can feel there’s more there. You’re aching with love.

Roxy answers the door already in her pyjamas. You both look at each others’ ensembles and start to laugh at the same time. You probably shouldn’t have gone with the suit, but it had felt like the right thing to do at the time.

She lets you in and you find the vase on top of the fridge, where it’s always been. She takes your hand when you’ve got them settled and pulls you to the lounge. 

‘What’s your game, Egbert?’ she asks.

‘Do you ever think about how we’re the only ones from our timeline?’ you ask.

She leans back into the couch, looking at you with surprise. 

‘Sometimes, yeah.’

‘I don’t know if it’s that. Or if it’s that we were married, or if it’s my stupid main character powers or if it’s …’ you cough, and start over. ‘You feel like home, Roxy.’

She shakes her head, biting her lip. Shit, you made it about you and your feelings again.

‘What were you going to say?’ she asks, just before you’re about to correct yourself. 

You wince slightly, but you’re being honest. That’s the deal, you’re not compensating for your perceived flaws anymore and you’re not hiding in the back of your mind, watching everything fall apart. You’re owning this.

‘Do you believe in soulmates?’ you ask.

‘Oh, John,’ she says. ‘Oh, hon, I’m not your soulmate. You’re just lonely and sad and I remind every damn person around here of the mother they never had.’

‘Okay, I’m not gonna pretend like we don’t have issues. That’d be really dumb. And I’m also not gonna deny that I’m lonely sometimes and sad sometimes too. But I wasn’t _just_ sad, Roxy, I was depressed. I was despairing. I literally couldn’t try, even though I wanted to.’

‘John,’ she says again, that same pitying tone. 

‘I’m not saying I’m cured,’ you interrupt. ‘I’m not looking for your pity or making excuses or trying to take all the blame for our marriage. I’m telling you that I’m trying, now.’ _Honesty,_ you remind yourself. ‘I’m seeing a therapist and I’m moving on from all the tangled up, hopeless bullshit I was wallowing in. And I’m not here because you’re the only option, I’m here because you’re the only one for _me,_ no matter if we were the only two in the fucking universe or if we were surrounded by people. Or maybe you’re not even the only one, but I’d choose you anyway.’

‘John,’ she says more sternly. You shut up, and give her your full attention. You hold back all those apologetic rambles that would just stop her from talking and just listen, like you always should have.

‘I’m glad you’re getting help and I’m really glad you’re making things right with Harry Anderson. But I’m not another item on a getting better checklist.’

‘Do you really think my very expensive and sensible therapist would tell me that I should try and woo my ex-wife as part of my recovery?’ you ask, smiling gently.

She frowns slightly. You get out of your armchair, sick of the coffee table acting as some kind of barrier between you, and sit next to her. 

‘Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll go,’ you promise.

‘I can’t say that,’ Roxy says, and you hear the weight of everything you’ve been through in those words. Of course she loves you. You could never stop loving Roxy, but that doesn’t fix everything. You know that.

‘Okay,’ you acknowledge. ‘Tell me you don’t feel this too and I’ll go.’

She lets you lean in and kiss her. You can’t remember your first kiss anymore, but you’ve kissed her so many times that there’s not even the possibility of fumbling, your glasses are a non-issue and you know exactly how her lips will feel. 

What you aren’t expecting is the way your heart speeds up, the way your body flushes with warmth and the desperate need to kiss her again and again, as if your very soul is on fire and you’ll do anything to fan it higher. 

You pull back, overwhelmed by the intensity of your feelings but still present in the room. You _are_ present, you can see Roxy’s long, pale eyelashes, feel the warmth of her leg against yours, hear her soft breath and smell her familiar shampoo. You don’t have to disappear to escape what you feel. You want to be here.

‘Roxy,’ you say. 

She strokes your cheek, looking into your eyes like she’s searching for something, her mouth solemn as if she heard the intensity of your feelings and knows the weight of your love.

‘John,’ she says.

You realise she’s about to kiss you only a second before she does and you explode into hope more powerful than anything you’ve felt around Jake. You meet her lips halfway and press into her gratefully, reverently. It’s almost impossible to let her go again, but when she pulls back you let her.

‘I must be crazy,’ she says. ‘I’m not making out with my ex-husband right now, I can’t be.’

You rest your cheek on her shoulder, finding the spot where you’ve always fit perfectly as if you never left.

‘Do you need time to think about it?’ you ask.

‘No,’ she says. Her voice is so certain that you pull back, sure she’s about to ask you to leave. ‘You have a way of getting to me, John Egbert. I’m supposed to love easily and widely, not like this.’

She takes your hand and you thread your fingers together. She pulls the back of your hand to her lips. 

‘I missed you,’ she whispers. 

‘I missed you too.’

She still looks wary, like she thinks that you’re going to fall back into the same place you’ve been almost the entire time she’s known you. You wish you could tell her you won’t, but you don’t know that and she couldn’t believe you. 

‘I love you,’ you say instead.

She smiles and kisses your hand again. You haven’t said that nearly as much as you should have. You haven’t shown it enough either.

You stand up, pulling her with you.

‘You know, we’ve got ages before that teenager of ours comes home,’ you tell her.

‘Yeah? You gonna take me to a shooting range?’

‘I can show you some guns,’ you grin.

She laughs, dropping your hand to cover her face. Your cheeks hurt from smiling, but you can’t stop. You made her happy.

‘It says something about me that that’s gonna work on me,’ she says.

‘Really?’ you ask.

 _’Don’t_ make me change my mind.’

You pull her towards the stairs, not even trying to stop smiling anymore. 

‘You know I don’t actually have big muscles, right?’


End file.
